Rising Moon Inn

This popular inn of Highmoon in Deepingdale is cheap, warm, and cozy. It feels like guests are being made welcome in someone’s home by casual hosts who do not care if people put their feet up on the tables, so long as they enjoy being there and do not pick fights with other guests. It has been made moderately famous by bards as the foster home of Shandril Shessair, the spellfire wielder.

The Place

The half-timbered inn has a fieldstone ground floor and chimney and a roof of cedar shakes. A post out front, the wall above the serving window of the bar (where the proprietor’'s axe hangs), and the stained glass of the inn’'s front door all display the sign of the inn: the silver crescent moon. The upper floor has 11 sleeping rooms that vary widely in size. One room can accommodate a party of six in separate beds. For larger parties, renting more than one room is the norm, although the inn does have an attic where the staff members sleep.

The trot down to Deeping Stream that Shandril Shessair used to make is blocked by a city wall now. Traffic through the gate usually makes a water bucket run, even with a shoulder yoke, impractical, so piping has been run up from the river. A treadle pump installed in a small summerhouse just behind the kitchen door moves the water up through the pipes. For 1 cp per bucket, passersby are allowed the use of the pump to fill their own buckets.

The cellars beneath the Rising Moon are extensive. The owner, Gorstag, is thinking of relocating the staff sleeping quarters into them and putting another floor of rooms in by opening up the attic with dormers.

The Prospect

Gorstag’s thoughts of expansion are due to the Moon’'s burgeoning popularity. Always the best no-troubles lodging in Highmoon, this inn has become famous as the early home of the only known wielder of spellfire in all the Realms, Shandril Shessair. Many folk, from powerful wizards seeking the secrets of spellfire to the merely curious, have come to Highmoon to question Gorstag closely about Shandril’'s life in hopes of learning just what awakened spellfire within her. Gorstag retired from adventuring to reopen his father'’s old inn here some 30 years ago. Running the inn with him are is wife Lureene and their mute cook Rhiia Duskmantle.

Success has not spoiled the folk of the Moon. They are still the same friendly, easygoing, cheerfully earthy hosts they have always been. Staying at the Moon is like temporarily being taken in to a large, fun-loving, forgiving family. This feeling of belonging is one of the reasons crowding is now a regular problem at the Moon— and the others are Lureene’'s butter tarts and Rhiia’'s hearty poultry dishes.

Some local folk come to the Moon for dinner, and when the place is full to bursting, others ask if they can sleep in the stables just to feel they have stayed at the Moon. In the cold season, visitors still find the main room crowded at mealtimes but the rest of the day guests are few. It is also in winter that Gorstag taps his excellent and very strong cider and serves it hot by the fire with buttered biscuits.

The Provender

Though Lureen's tarts easily take the prize for the best viands to be had at the Moon, Rhiia's soups, pork pies, and fowl dishes are what fill most folk up and keep them coming back for more.

The Prices

Folk who come here just for meals pay 1 gp for all they can eat and drink on the premises or 5 sp for all they can eat and drinks costing extra. Guests pay 6 sp a night for a bed but a whopping 4 gp if they want a room all to themselves due to the inn's normal crowding. Guest receive their meals at a reduced price of 2 sp per person per meal for as many servings as they can down but drinks are extra. Stabling is an extra 1 sp per night per beast.

All folk paying for drinks, that is all overnight guests and those visiting just to dine, who elect to pay for just all they can eat, face prices of 4 cp per talltankard for beer and 3 cp per tallglass for wine.

Gorstag serves Shadowdark Ale, Purple Dragon Ale, and Dragon's Breath Beer, and stocks a dubious selection of rather plummy red wines and dry, thin whites made locally by old ladies along the Glaemril who cannot resist experimentally adding herbs and berries to each vintage. The quality of their wine varies wildly from bottle to bottle, and I would not recommend it for anyone not willing to lose the worth of their coin in the taste experiment.

Gorstag himself loves night snacks. While he is up preparing things, he feels he might as well serve other night eaters who come to the front door and blow through a tube to make a distinctive low humming sound that does not wake guests above but brings Gorstag to open up. These snacks consist of beer, hot buttered bread, and cheese. Strong cheeses are Gorstag'’s passion; he offers Arabellan Cheddar, Elturian Gray, Pepper Cheese— and even Damarite Red and the rarely seen Green Calishite. A mug and a platter sets snackers back the grand sum of 1 cp and is the best deal by far in town if one can wait until the wee hours to dine.

Travelers’ Lore

The Rising Moon is an old, historied inn. Gorstag can tell many tales of the early days of Highmoon and of his own adventuring career. Despite what he says, however, he is not old enough to ever have known the Deeping Princess.

Most folk think of the Moon just as the home of spellfire. Those expecting fireworks, strange magic, or even a commemorative plaque will be disappointed. Gorstag and Lureene are, however, very proud of “their little girl” Shandril and will talk freely of her early days at the inn.

Gorstag understands the restlessness that drove Shandril to seek adventure, but believes he did the right thing in giving her a normal childhood and keeping her hidden from prying eyes for so long. He and Lureene studiously avoid answering questions as to Shandril’'s present whereabouts, Instead, they talk to the pryingly curious about the exciting growth of Highmoon and what it will mean to the treasured pastoral feel of the Dale and the sylvan-loving elves.

One of the rumored locations of the tomb of the Deeping Princess is beneath the cellars of the Rising Moon. Although Gorstag denies that there is any truth to the rumor, a secret shaft was recently discovered in one side of the hearth chimney opening out of its side into the kitchens. The shaft proved to descend past the present cellars into a low, arch-roofed cellar about 70 feet long whose far end was blocked by a rock fall. Gorstag believes this was more likely a smugglers’ cellar than an elven tomb, and its construction would seem to support his contention. It is rumored in town that a certain patron has paid Gorstag a very handsome sum of money for the private and exclusive use of this storage space. Just who the renter is and what the cellar is being used for are things Gorstag refuses to discuss; even the most avid gossips do not seem to know.

History buffs should not miss the battered Stag Shield above the kitchen door. Its barely legible arms are those of Rauthren Halawk, one of the first human settlers to answer the call of the Deeping Princess to dwell here by the Glaemril and found Deepingdale.